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Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship

We are a dedicated institute for student entrepreneurs across campus and beyond. We aim to maximize your success by fostering your entrepreneurial mindset, promote inter-disciplinary collaboration and provide support for the creation and development of your new ventures. Jumpstart your ideas and get involved today!

Tune in for excitement!

Passion. Potential. Pitches. Don't miss any of the 2025 New Venture Challenge excitement.

Tune in Friday, April 11 at 1 p.m. for great ideas and fierce competition. Then, join the judges, mentors, spectators and teams as they see who is going home with thousands of dollars in venture financing. The awards broadcast begins at 6:30 p.m. and one team will walk away as the overall best venture. 

Start your entrepreneurial journey

Central Michigan University’s College of Business Administration is the home of the Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship and the first Department of Entrepreneurship in the state of Michigan. We are a student-centric hub where experiential, curricular, and external entrepreneurial opportunities intersect.

Our mission is to maximize student success by fostering a campus-wide entrepreneurial mindset that promotes inter-disciplinary collaboration and the creation of new ventures.

We aim to create innovative programming, boost cross-campus and ecosystem collaboration and provide a comprehensive mentoring program.

Our institute provides extracurricular opportunities and is open to all undergraduate and graduate CMU students.

Student opportunities

  • Meet experienced alumni, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors, and other business and political leaders.
  • Learn practical skills, innovative thinking, and connect with mentors and entrepreneurial resources.
  • Attend skill-building workshops and compete in pitch competitions and Hackathons.
  • Take part in special scholarship programs and travel experiences.
  • Pitch your venture at our signature New Venture Challenge event and compete for up to $20,000 in cash awards.

      Find your path

      Are you interested in becoming an entrepreneur?

      Every journey is unique. Explore the opportunities that interest you.

      CMU learning breaks down walls

      by Sanjna Jassi
      At CMU, as a video series shows, learning and career preparation often begin outside the four walls of a traditional classroom.

      It doesn't look like a classroom. But that's what Media Graphix — Central Michigan University's student-run graphic design agency in the Bovee University Center — is for senior May Napora.

      Napora, of Arlington Heights, Illinois, studies animation in the College of the Arts and Media. She will graduate in May 2020 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in graphic design and with CMU's new animation concentration.

      She said the animated digital designs she creates for Media Graphix clients stand apart from in-class assignments.

      "Once you start doing real-world projects, you have to deal with things like client meetings and invoices, billing — more of the business end of everything," she said.

      The rewards can be huge. Napora recently produced an informational graphic about the new videoboard at Kelly/Shorts Stadium, and CMU's athletics department shared a video of her graphic playing on the 100-foot-wide screen.

      Napora's experience is just one example of how learning career skills at CMU often extends beyond the four walls of a traditional classroom.

      Leave the lecture behind

      Explore a growing list of unconventional learning spaces in our My Classroom video series.

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      Entrepreneurship News

      Questions?

      Contact the team